Entering Saturday’s exhibition finale at the Cardinals, the 6-foot-6, 232-pound Qadir has four catches for 42 yards.
A former college quarterback who switched to receiver at Villanova before transferring to Samford, Qadir has yet to appear in an NFL game after spending most of the 2024 season on the Ravens practice squad.
He is now in a loaded Raiders tight end room with the likes of first-team All-Pro Brock Bowers, Michael Mayer and Ian Thomas.
And no, there are no prep talks about what it means to be a Raider from Uncle Rocket.
“You don’t want to make the moment too big,” Qadir said. “You kind of take it day-by-day. So, whatever he did, that has no bearing on me and what I’ve got to prove every single day.”
The 6-foot-1, 198-pound Shedrick, meanwhile, ran a 4.25-second 40-time in college and is leading the Raiders in the preseason with seven receptions for 104 yards and a TD.
But he, too, is in a numbers crunch among receivers with veterans Jakobi Meyers and Tre Tucker joined by rookie draft picks Dont’e Thornton, Jr., Jack Bech and Tommy Mellott, let alone holdover Alex Bachman.
And the next catch Shedrick has in a regular season NFL game will be his first.
Having played at Auburn, like Grunkle Bo, Shedrick signed with Cincinnati as an undrafted rookie in 2023 and spent most of that season and the beginning of 2024 on the Bengals practice squad, though he did appear in five games for them that first year.
His career line: a special teams tackle and one target, a Jake Browning deep ball incompletion, in five offensive snaps. He joined the Raiders practice squad on Dec. 4, 2024 and was signed to a reserve/futures contract in January.
With the Raiders starters not expected to play at Arizona, Qadir and Shedrick should get plenty of run against the Cardinals. And seeing ISMAIL and JACKSON on the backs of those two Raiders jerseys give fans an opportunity to remember the past, while evaluating the present to see if there is a future for either player.
“People are now coming up, ‘Oh, The Rocket’s your uncle?'” Qadir said with a grin. “If he didn’t do anything, then it wouldn’t have meant nothing. But he did.”